Miscellaneous active electrical nonlinear devices – circuits – and – Signal converting – shaping – or generating – Having specific delay in producing output waveform
Reexamination Certificate
2008-06-11
2010-06-08
Luu, An T (Department: 2816)
Miscellaneous active electrical nonlinear devices, circuits, and
Signal converting, shaping, or generating
Having specific delay in producing output waveform
C327S274000, C327S278000, C327S280000
Reexamination Certificate
active
07733149
ABSTRACT:
A programmable delay element, variable-length delay chain, and ring oscillator are disclosed. The programmable delay element performs phase interpolation of input signals in response to a control signal and can be used in combination with other delay elements to create a highly-modular, variable-length delay chain or ring oscillator. The ring oscillator can be used as part of a digitally-controlled oscillator (DCO) in a digital clock synthesizer to adjust the frequency and phase of a clock signal by fractional unit delay steps. Optionally, the programmable delay element utilizes current-mode logic (CML) and the control signal is a thermometer coded digital signal. Within the variable-length delay chain, some programmable delay elements can be configured to scale the delay-step of other programmable delay elements so that a plurality of step sizes can be implemented with identical delay elements. Also, variations of the delay chain generate in-phase and quadrature phase (I/Q) signals in either an end-tap or center-tap configuration.
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Delage Jean-Francois
Djahanshahi Hormoz
Fortin Guillaume
Luu An T
PMC-Sierra Inc.
Townsend and Townsend / and Crew LLP
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